This evening I took the B.A.R.T. train to Berkeley, which is a city over the bay from San Francisco, just north of Oakland. I was visiting my friend Paul Supawanich, who I’d met in Brisbane in 2007. He’s American and was doing an overseas study program at the time. I had mentioned wanting to do a USA trip whilst in Australia, and had promised to visit him whilst I was there. No doubt lots of people will have said things like that, I enjoy actually doing them.

I was to meet Paul and his friends at a place called the Albatross pub. I was there by 8pm and a few minutes later Paul and his buddies arrived. He then sprung a bit of a surprise by saying that he’d just got engaged! He said he’d been in North Carolina to surprise his girlfriend for her birthday and then propose. He seemed to be pleased that I had kept my word and made my way to Berkeley to see him

The trip back on the B.A.R.T. was slightly complicated as I need to change trains. This turned out to be easy enough and before long I was walking up the steep hills of central San Francisco again. San Francisco over the last eight days has been fun. I think anybody wanting to live here would need to work on their fitness, as these hills are huge! But those aside it’s a clean city, where the public seem quite happy to use public transport. Cars are everywhere of course, but they do seem to recognise pedestrians, and give way to them in most cases. The cable cars add a pleasant relaxed touch to the city centre, and clearly pull in the tourists.

One area I didn’t get to visit was Sillicon Valley, south of San Francisco. This is where many of the world’s biggest technology companies are based, including Google. I think a good tour of this area would have needed a rental car, perhaps next time.